The Girl I Used to Be(90)

I frowned, unable to understand for a minute. “What, in London?”

“No.” He laughed. “The night of the party.”

“We didn’t meet! You raped me when I was asleep.”

He shrugged. “Same difference. Where’s that photo? I’d like to see it.”

“Jack Howard has it,” I said.

“Who?”

“One of Alex’s friends.”

“So how did you see it?”

“He showed it to me.”

“And you showed Rachel?”

I hesitated.

“One of you has a copy of it. I want to see it. Come on, Gemma. I just want to see it.” He winked at me. “Add it to my collection. Where is it?”

“My phone’s in my handbag,” I lied. “Downstairs in the kitchen. It’s on an e-mail to Rachel.” I needed to get him out of the room, to call the police.

I could see him trying to work out what to do. He couldn’t let me go downstairs alone. He looked at Rachel. She was still on the floor, her eyes shut. Purple bruises were blooming on the side of her face.

He glanced around the room. There was a wooden chair next to Alex’s desk, over by the window. “Sit over there,” he said.

I tried to buy some time. “What?”

He grabbed my arm and pushed me over to the chair. There were files on the chair and I recognized them from school. It was the work Alex had done there; the work that had got him into Oxford. David tipped the chair and the files scattered across the floor. He kicked a couple out of the way, then pushed me down onto the chair. He opened the wardrobe and inside the door were Alex’s school ties. With such ease I knew he’d done this before, he grabbed one and tied me to the chair. I could see Rachel on the floor; his back was to her as he wrenched my arms behind my back. I saw her eyelids flicker, just once. I had to alert her and I had to cover up any noise she’d make.

So I started to yell. It took him by surprise, I could tell. He slapped my face hard, so that my head whipped to one side, but I carried on screaming. He reached over to the wardrobe for another tie and stood in front of me, trying to tie it around my mouth. I was wriggling and shrieking and in all the commotion he just didn’t hear her.

But I did.





SEVENTY-ONE


    RACHEL


I’D NEVER THOUGHT for a minute that Gemma could yell like that. She was really going for it, screaming and shouting and swearing. It was the best thing she could have done.

David was frantic, trying to tie her up and shut her up at the same time. He was used to more passive victims. He was used to me.

He’d never seen me as a threat, more of an opportunity. He’d walked into that chapel at the crematorium last year and he’d winked at me—who winks at a bereaved daughter at a funeral? And when I winked back, he knew I’d be putty in his hands.

Well, you know what they say: Pride comes before a fall.

There was no need for me to be quiet because Gemma was making enough noise to cover me, but still I slid my feet up slowly and waited a second. He hit her again—a punch in the jaw that time, and I knew she’d be as bruised as me soon. She screamed as though she were being murdered and I felt a surge of admiration for her.

And then I knew I was going to do this for her, as well as for Alex.

Within a second I was standing. David didn’t notice a thing, but I knew Gemma had. She’d leaned forward and grabbed his hair in her mouth and was pulling it so hard he couldn’t turn to look in my direction. Now he was shouting, too, calling her names that made me feel sick. In two steps I reached the door and grabbed Alex’s hockey stick with both hands. I’d sat with him before he went to Oxford and we’d wound new binding tape around the end so that he could grip it better, and written his initials, A.C., on the tape. He hadn’t played hockey at Oxford; the tape was pristine.

Now with both hands on the stick, I stood behind David. Gemma looked up at me and I mouthed, Let go.

She gave one more vicious tug that made him scream, then spat his hair onto the floor.

I said, “David?” in the sweetest voice I could muster.

In the split second between him hearing me and turning around, he let go of Gemma and I brought the stick down on his head, as hard as I could.

He fell to the ground, stunned. I hit him again and again and in the silence between blows I heard the sound of a bone cracking.

Gemma shouted, “Rachel!”

I turned, thinking she was telling me to stop, but she said, “Quick, untie me!”

I twisted her chair away from David. “You watch him,” I whispered, and she turned to look at him while I struggled with the knots. I gave up and pulled open the drawer to Alex’s desk and grabbed the scissors that had always been there. I cut the ties and put the scissors in my back pocket in case I needed them, later. Gemma stood, rubbing her legs.

Then David stirred.

She and I stood frozen to the spot as we watched him kneel, preparing to stand. He turned to look at us and I panicked.

Gemma didn’t panic, though. She picked up that hockey stick and she raised it high in the air. With a grim look on her face, she brought it crashing down on David’s back.

He swore and fell back, landing heavily on his shoulder. I held my breath, but he started to push himself up again.